Daycare helps poor infants

Babies from poor homes and troubled families benefit from
attending daycare from an early age, a Universite de Montreal researcher says.

Once they get to kindergarten, they are less likely to bite, push or hit other children compared with infants from high-risk families who stayed home from birth, psychologist Sylvana Cote said Monday.

The problem is that fewer babies from troubled or impoverished homes go to daycare early on and their choices are limited, Cote said.

Her findings, which have yet to be published, are the latest results of a long-term study comparing the impact of child care, in and outside the home, on 3,421 children across Canada. The first results, published two years ago, found that 2- and 3-year-old children from high-risk families were more likely to be aggressive if they had been looked after by their own parents.

Cote's findings contrast with a C.D. Howe Institute study made public recently, suggesting that the Quebec daycare system increases aggressive behaviour among children and can be bad for parents.